Catapult Recognized at CGI for “Exemplary Impact”

New York, NY – Sep 28, 2015
President Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton opened the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting, bringing together more than 1,000 world leaders from the philanthropic, business, and government sectors, who have created Commitments to Action that tackle issues like education, poverty, the environment, health and girls and women’s empowerment.

Highlighted today during the opening plenary, Catapult was recognized for its “exemplary impact”.

“Ten years ago, I had this idea that we might be able to create a new community—built around the realities of the modern world—where problem-solving requires government, the private sector, and civil society to work together,” said President Clinton. “Rather than bringing people together to just talk about problems, CGI has asked people to stop focusing on what we couldn’t do, and think more about what we could do to make a difference.”

“We’ve made an incredible impact through CGI over the last 10 years,” said Chelsea Clinton, Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation. “Through their CGI Commitments to Action, our members are turning innovative ideas into meaningful action.”

Catapult’s commitment was initiated in 2012 when Women Deliver committed to incubate and launch Catapult, a web-based crowdfunding platform designed to drive donations from people to projects that advance the lives of girls and women around the world. Catapult completed its commitment as of March 1, 2015. In two years, commitment partners designed, built, and launched a woman-led crowdfunding platform. Through an entirely new channel for funds and engagement, a mass participation technology was created to benefit all girls’ and women’s rights organizations. The partners also fully funded more than 400 projects for girls and women’s equality. Catapult has implemented the partnerships, due diligence, grant tracking, reporting, and donor communications across 86 countries. In addition, Women Deliver and Catapult designed and implemented a host of technical features to support major private sector partnerships and campaigns, and crowdfunded over $7 million that went directly to more than 190 NGOs in 86 countries.

Catapult, which is now an independent 501(c)3, continues to build on its innovative model of public/private partnerships.